NEW YORK — A team of police officers and FBI agents began tearing apart a New York City basement yesterday as part of a decades-old investigation into the disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz.

Etan vanished on May 25, 1979, after leaving his family’s Manhattan apartment for a short walk to catch a school bus. It was the first time his parents had let him go off to school alone.

The building being searched is about a block from where the family lived, in the borough’s SoHo section, and is along the route that the boy would have taken to reach the bus stop.

Police spokesman Paul Browne said a forensic team would dig up a floor and search through the rubble for blood, clothing or human remains. The work could take five days.

He wouldn’t say what evidence led investigators to the property, but a law-enforcement official said that at the time of the boy’s disappearance, the building housed the work space of a carpenter who was thought to have been friendly with the boy.

In the past few months, the official said, investigators had received information that Etan’s remains might be buried in the basement.

In the past few weeks, an FBI dog indicated the presence of human remains in the space, prompting the decision to dig.

Two other law-enforcement officials confirmed that an FBI dog had detected the scent of remains.

Etan’s disappearance was a media sensation in 1979, and his face was among the first to appear on milk cartons.

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan declared May 25 to be National Missing Children’s Day.

Etan’s parents, Stanley and Julie Patz, became outspoken advocates for missing children. For years, they refused to change their phone number, in the hope that Etan was alive somewhere and might call. They never moved.

It's intriguing to me... could you imagine going that long not knowing what happened to your missing child? It must be agony for these people. 33 years is a long time but if evidence can be found to bring this child some peace, then they should investigate further....